Nearly 5,000 books donated to Muskegon school to improve early literacy

MUSKEGON, MI - Moon Elementary School received a huge investment in the future of its students on Friday: delivery of nearly 5,000 new books for its kindergarten through third-grade classrooms.

Students helped Muskegon Public Schools Superintendent Justin Jennings and Muskegon Area Intermediate School District Superindent John Severson unload two vehicles filled with books to their classrooms.

Many of the classrooms lacked enough books for children to expand their literary skills or read books of interest to them.

"This is awesome for our school," Principal Okeelah McBride said. "We started working with Reading Now last spring, and to see all the hard work and the planning pay off like this is unrealistic. It's so exciting."

Boxes were filled with books that covered various topics at different reading levels for students to explore their interests while building skills and a love for reading. Some classrooms had as few as 100 books in them, many of which were in poor condition or purchased by the teachers.

Reading Now Network research shows that every classroom should have at least 1,500 books in each room.

"We spent a Friday night going through every classroom counting and documenting all the books at what level we had," McBride said. "Even with some of the books they had, they weren't at the correct reading levels or interests of our students so that's what determined the need."

The books were purchased by Herman Miller Cares as part of the Reading Now Network, which is a collective effort of 70 school districts across 13 counties in West Michigan to improve early literacy and student achievement across all grade levels.

As part of an effort to bring literacy practices used at high-achieving schools into those who need improvement, Reading Now Network selected four schools who volunteered to be lab schools.

Lab schools worked with the program to institute five principles of reading success based from research performed in schools with high reading scores.

"We have a staff here that recognized the need for classroom libraries and books and this was the perfect opportunity to make this happen for our students," McBride said. "We were willing to do whatever it takes."

The five principles include a focus on reading, using relevant data, shared leadership and sustained commitment, learning-focused classrooms and a responsibility for every student's success.

Herman Miller and Huntington donated a combined $30,000 to the Reading Now Network, part of which benefited Moon Elementary School through the purchase of books.

"As a major employer in the area, we recognize that it's important for us to step up and help out to provide some resources knowing that it's going to help out down the line," said Alison Freas, Herman Miller Academy program manager and Education chair for Herman Miller Cares.

"Ultimately, this is the future of our region. These students are the future talent down the line and we need to make an investment in them at a young age and we're happy to do that."

McBride hopes to get grades four through six involved in a classroom library project similar to this one in the future, but said she is happy to get a start on early literacy with the lower grades for now.